Awesome diamond dust emote

[Lauront]

Selling the emote separately defeats the purpose of the emote.

Exactly. It's the same as the decision to bundle a statue in a CE. They know exactly how many emotes they sell and I bet you the figures aren't as high as people might think; now, add in a higher price point to maintain some exclusivity for these emotes, and the potential cannibalization of the tied in sales, and it isn't a slam dunk to them. They have to look at whether the combination of the items yields higher potential appeal for the item (and therefore sales) than selling them individually, which might seriously devalue the emote and certainly create a less attractive proposition than the bundled item. I can tell you one thing: they don't really give a shit about this mass availability point with regard to emotes. Housing is an integral part of the game, so yeah, they might listen to feedback on that, particularly if the game devs weigh in on it. People griping for them to de-bundle emotes? Nah. Potential sales figures will determine that.

[Reinha]

One shared by the producers of the game, so... he's on stronger footing than you are, at this point lol

Thread: "We'd like to have this item"
Theodric: "I'd like you to not have this item"

The fact that he is looking for "solid reasons" without providing any himself, is pretty funny!

A company sharing an opinion does not make it an argument. It's still an opinion, so no stronger footing there. Besides the company is selling plenty of unbundled emotes, costumes and digital collector's editions so I don't agree that the company is somehow on his side. The CE is actually proof that the same digital items can be sold bundled and separately at the same time. So, Theodric pretty much countered his own argument in post #62.

They know exactly how many emotes they sell and I bet you the figures aren't as high as people might think; now, add in a higher price point to maintain some exclusivity for these emotes, and the potential cannibalization of the tied in sales, and it isn't a slam dunk to them.

Microtransactions are a huge moneymaker in the industry, bringing profits comparable to actual DLC sales. I remain unconvinced that tying minions/outfits/emotes to physical merchandise makes anywhere near the amount of additional money as low priced cosmetic items sold separately.

[Theodric]

If nothing else, this thread makes it rather obvious which posters do not frequent the likes of Harrods.

[Canadane]

Why does there need to be a bonus attached to the statues? If people don't want to buy statues on their own for the price they are worth then maybe SE should quit selling extortionate statues and instead make more emotes for the masses.

Are they extortionate though?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Except that’s how gaming used to be. Costumes were built into the game progression when I first started gaming. Most games have the systems built in and then, due to the popularity and monetary benefit of loot boxes, which should have been kept to Free to Play games, they got caught by the allure of locking cosmetic items behind some kind of paywall.

The Jimqusition covers this rather nicely.
https://youtu.be/Ce5CDrq4dGg “It’s just cosmetic.”
https://youtu.be/NLDid1UNyg8 “Year of the Lootbox.”

Eventually this slippery slope will lead to even more smarmy buisness tactics, locking desirable content, emotes, etc. behind paywalls.

And times have changed. The cost of game development has skyrocketed. Companies aren't just going to eat these additional costs, they're going to push some of them onto the consumer akin to every other industry. Once upon a time, I could buy a 2L Pepsi for 99 cents yet now pay twice that amount. You've already established these companies are greedy. Why, then, would greedy companies suddenly go back to a system that hurts their bottom line? DLC, in particular, isn't necessarily cut out games to be sold back. Developers have a certain deadline, and at best, put baseline code into the game so they can begin working on it later. I have also watched both those videos. Jim's stance isn't "if we just stop buying micro-transactions, EA and SE will put everything back into their games for free!" He simply doesn't care if games have the extra content they're charging for.

You're also comparing lootboxes. There is a significant difference between paying for precisely what you want and gambling for said item. Regardless, games will never go back to how they were in 1999. If you outlawed DLC and micro-transactions tomorrow, your EAs and Activisions of the world would cut all extra content development. Once again, look how fast EA dropped Andromeda when it looked to be a financial loss for them. They flat out cancelled planned DLC because they didn't think it would make them money.

[Aivi_lo]

I actually ordered the statue because I like it. The emote is a bonus, that probably wont get much use outside the first week or so(or if I'm ever finding myself in a Shiva EX I will pop it for screen shot purposes).

Could I get the emote from you then

[Aivi_lo]

Because of the basic human desire to stand out from the crowd and be an individual.

Exclusivity is quite key to that. And there's no value in something everyone else has.

I could give you a full psychological run down but I don't want to write a book.

That's why we suck as a race :/

[Aivi_lo]

I m buying the statue because it looks cool but I'm not really interested by the emote (and my interest for FFXIV is dwindling by the day). At least it's not 150 $ to attend a promotional marketing event.

Could I grab the emote then?

[Zarabeth]

In game content exclusives should not exist when tied to out of game merchandise.

Riiiight, somehow I doubt se will do this. It would be like putting all the mog station exclusive items into the game for those who can't afford them. Won't happen. People who have money to spare will always buy this stuff and others get left out. Welcome to life.

[ErryK]

The panhandling is real.